CHAPTERIIIOLD YORK
York, August 12, 1888.—All summer long the sorrowful skies have been weeping over England, and my first prospect of this ancient city was a prospect through drizzle and mist. Yet even so it was impressive. York is one of the quaintest cities in the kingdom. Many of the streets are narrow and crooked. Most of the buildings are of low stature, built of brick, and roofed with red tiles. Here and there you find a house of Queen Elizabeth's time, picturesque with overhanging timber-crossed fronts and peaked gables. One such house, in Stonegate, is conspicuously marked with its date, 1574. Another, in College street, enclosing a quadrangular court and lovely with old timber and carved gateway, was built by the Neville family in 1460. There is a wide area in the centre of the town called Parliament street, where the market is opened, by torchlight, on certain evenings of every week. It was market-time last evening, and, wandering through the motley and merry crowd that filled the square, about nine o'clock, Ibought, at a flower-stall, the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster,—twining them together as an emblem of the settled peace that here broods so sweetly over the venerable relics of a wild and stormy past.
Bootham Bar.
Bootham Bar.
Four sections of the old wall of York are still extant and the observer is amused to perceive the ingenuity with which those gray and mouldering remnants of the feudal age are blended into the structures of the democratic present. From Bootham to Monk Gate,—so named in honour of General Monk, at the Restoration,—a distance of about half a mile, the wall is absorbed by the adjacent buildings. But you may walk upon it from Monk Gate to Jewbury, about a quarter of a mile, and afterward, crossing the Foss, you may find it again on the southeast of the city, and walk upon itfrom Red Tower to old Fishergate, descending near York Castle. There are houses both within the walls and without. The walk is about eight feet wide, protected on one hand by a fretted battlement and on the other by an occasional bit of iron fence. The base of the wall, for a considerable part of its extent, is fringed with market gardens or with grassy banks. In one of its towers there is a gate-house, still occupied as a dwelling; and a comfortable dwelling no doubt it is. In another, of which nothing now remains but the walls, four large trees are rooted; and, as they are already tall enough to wave their leafy tops above the battlement, they must have been growing there for at least twenty years. At one point the Great Northern Railway enters through an arch in the ancient wall, and as you look down from the battlements your gaze rests upon long lines of rail and a spacious station, together with its adjacent hotel,—objects which consort but strangely with what your fancy knows of York; a city of donjons and barbicans, the moat, the draw-bridge, the portcullis, the citadel, the man-at-arms, and the knight in armour, with the banners of William the Norman flowing over all.
The river Ouse divides the city of York, which lies mostly upon its east bank, and in order to reach the longest and most attractive portion of the wall that is now available to the pedestrian you must cross the Ouse, either at Skeldergate or Lendal, paying a half-penny as toll, both when you go and when you return. The walk here is three-quarters of a mile long, and from an angle of this wall, just above the railway arch, may be obtained the best view of the mighty cathedral,—oneof the most stupendous and sublime works that ever were erected by the inspired brain and loving labour of man. While I walked there last night, and mused upon the story of the Wars of the Roses, and strove to conjure up the pageants and the horrors that must have been presented, all about this region, in that remote and turbulent past, the glorious bells of the minster were chiming from its towers, while the fresh evening breeze, sweet with the fragrance of wet flowers and foliage, seemed to flood this ancient, venerable city with the golden music of a celestial benediction.
York Cathedral—West Front.
York Cathedral—West Front.
The pilgrim to York stands in the centre of the largest shire in England and is surrounded with castles and monasteries, now mostly in ruins but teeming with those associations of history and literature that are the glory of this delightful land. From the summit of the great central tower of the cathedral, which is reached by two hundred and thirty-seven steps, I gazed out over the vale of York and beheld one of the loveliest spectacles that ever blessed the eyes of man. The wind was fierce, the sun brilliant, and the vanquished storm-clouds were streaming away before the northern blast. Far beneath lay the red-roofed city, its devious lanes and its many gray churches,—crumbling relics of ancient ecclesiastical power,—distinctly visible. Through the plain, and far away toward the south and east, ran the silver thread of the Ouse, while all around, as far as the eye could reach, stretched forth a smiling landscape of emerald meadow and cultivated field; here a patch of woodland, and there a silver gleam of wave; here a manor-house nestled amid stately trees, and there an ivy-covered fragment of ruined masonry; andeverywhere the green lines of the flowering hedge. The prospect is even finer here than it is from the splendid summit of Strasburg cathedral; and indeed, when all is said that can be said about natural scenery and architectural sublimities, it seems amazing that any lover of the beautiful should deem it necessary to quit the infinite variety of the British islands. Earth cannot show you anything more softly fair than the lakes and mountains of Cumberland and Westmoreland. No city can excel Edinburgh in stately solidity of character, or tranquil grandeur, or magnificence of position. The most exquisitely beautiful of churches is Roslin chapel. And though you search the wide world through you will never find such cathedrals,—so fraught withmajesty, sublimity, the loveliness of human art, and the ecstatic sense of a divine element in human destiny,—as those of York, Canterbury, Gloucester, and Lincoln. While thus I lingered in wondering meditation upon the crag-like summit of York minster, the muffled thunder of its vast, sonorous organ rose, rolling and throbbing, from the mysterious depth below, and seemed to shake the great tower as with a mighty blast of jubilation and worship. At such moments, if ever, when the tones of human adoration are floating up to heaven, a man is lifted out of himself and made to forget his puny mortal existence and all the petty nothings that weary his spirit, darken his vision, and weigh him down to the level of the sordid, trivial world. Well did they know this,—those old monks who built the abbeys of Britain, laying their foundations not alone deeply in the earth but deeply in the human soul!
All the ground that you survey from the top of York minster is classic ground,—at least to those persons whose imaginations are kindled by associations with the stately and storied past. In the city that lies at your feet once stood the potent Constantine, to be proclaimed emperor [A.D.306] and to be vested with the imperial purple of Rome. In the original York minster,—for the present is the fourth church that has been erected upon this site,—was buried that valiant soldier "old Siward," whom "gracious England" lent to the Scottish cause, under Malcolm and Macduff, when time at length was ripe for the ruin of Glamis and Cawdor. Close by is the field of Stamford, where Harold defeated the Norwegians, with terrible slaughter, only nine days before he was himself defeated and slain at Hastings.Southward, following the line of the Ouse, you look down upon the ruins of Clifford's Tower, built by William the Conqueror, in 1068, and destroyed by the explosion of its powder magazine in 1684. Not far away is the battlefield of Towton, where the great Warwick slew his horse, that he might fight on foot and possess no advantage over the common soldiers of his force. Henry the Sixth and Margaret were waiting in York for news of the event of that fatal battle,—which, in its effect, made them exiles and bore to an assured supremacy the rightful standard of the White Rose. In this church Edward the Fourth was crowned [1464], and Richard the Third was proclaimed king and had his second coronation. Southward you may see the open space called the Pavement, connecting with Parliament street, and the red brick church of St. Crux. In the Pavement the Earl of Northumberland was beheaded, for treason against Queen Elizabeth, in 1572, and in St. Crux [one of Wren's churches] his remains lie buried, beneath a dark blue slab, still shown to visitors. A few miles away, but easily within reach of your vision, is the field of Marston Moor, where the impetuous Prince Rupert imperilled and well-nigh lost the cause of Charles the First, in 1644; and as you look toward that fatal spot you can almost hear, in the chamber of your fancy, the pæans of thanksgiving for the victory that were uttered in the church beneath. Cromwell, then a subordinate officer in the Parliamentary army, was one of the worshippers. Charles also has knelt at this altar. Indeed, of the fifteen kings, from William of Normandy to Henry of Windsor, whose sculptured effigies appear upon the chancel screen in York minster,there is scarcely one who has not worshipped in this cathedral.
York Cathedral—South Side.
York Cathedral—South Side.
York minster has often been described, but no description can convey an adequate impression of its grandeur. Canterbury is the lovelier cathedral of the two, though not the grander, and Canterbury possesses the inestimable advantage of a spacious close. It must be said also, for the city of Canterbury, that the presence and influence of a great church are more distinctly and delightfully felt in that place than they are in York. There is a more spiritual tone at Canterbury, a tone of superior delicacy and refinement, a certain aristocratic coldness and repose. In York you perceive the coarse spirit of a democratic era. The walls, that ought to be cherished with scrupulous care, are found in many places to be ill-used. At intervals along the walks upon the banks of the Ouse you behold placards requesting the co-operation of the public in protecting from harm the swans that navigate the river. Even in the cathedral itself there is displayed a printed notice that the Dean and Chapter are amazed at disturbanceswhich occur in the nave while divine service is proceeding in the choir. These things imply a rough element in the population, and in such a place as York such an element is exceptionally offensive and deplorable.
It was said by the wise Lord Beaconsfield that progress in the nineteenth century is found to consist chiefly in a return to ancient ideas. There may be places to which the characteristic spirit of the present day contributes an element of beauty; but if so I have not seen them. Wherever there is beauty there is the living force of tradition to account for it. The most that a conservative force in society can accomplish, for the preservation of an instinct in favour of whatever is beautiful and impressive, is to protect what remains from the past. Modern Edinburgh, for example, has contributed no building that is comparable with its glorious old castle, or with Roslin, or with what we know to have been Melrose or Dryburgh; but its castle and its chapels are protected and preserved. York, in the present day, erects a commodious railway-station and a sumptuous hotel, and spans its ample river with two splendid bridges; but its modern architecture is puerile beside that of its ancient minster; and so its best work, after all, is the preservation of its cathedral. The observer finds it difficult to understand how anybody, however lowly born or poorly endowed or meanly nurtured, can live within the presence of that heavenly building, and not be purified and exalted by the contemplation of so much majesty, and by its constantly irradiative force of religious sentiment and power. But the spirit which in the past created objects of beauty and adorned common life with visible manifestations of the celestial aspirationin human nature had constantly to struggle against insensibility or violence; and just so the few who have inherited that spirit in the present day are compelled steadily to combat the hard materialism and gross animal proclivities of the new age.
York Cathedral—East Front.
York Cathedral—East Front.
What a comfort their souls must find in such an edifice as York minster! What a solace and what an inspiration! There it stands, dark and lonely to-night, but symbolising, as no other object upon earth can ever do, except one of its own great kindred, God's promiseof immortal life to man, and man's unquenchable faith in the promise of God. Dark and lonely now, but during many hours of its daily and nightly life sentient, eloquent, vital, participating in all the thought, conduct, and experience of those who dwell around it. The beautiful peal of its bells that I heard last night was for Canon Baillie, one of the oldest and most beloved and venerated of its clergy. This morning, sitting in its choir, I heard the tender, thoughtful eulogy so simply and sweetly spoken by the aged Dean, and once again learned the essential lesson that an old age of grace, patience, and benignity means a pure heart, an unselfish spirit, and a good life passed in the service of others. This afternoon I had a place among the worshippers that thronged the nave to hear the special anthem chanted for the deceased Canon; and, as the organ pealed forth its mellow thunder, and the rich tones of the choristers swelled and rose and broke in golden waves of melody upon the groined arches and vaulted roof, my soul seemed borne away to a peace and rest that are not of this world. To-night the rising moon as she gleams through drifting clouds, will pour her silver rays upon that great east window,—at once the largest and the most beautiful in existence,—and all the Bible stories told there in such exquisite hues and forms will glow with heavenly lustre on the dark vista of chancel and nave. And when the morning comes the first beams of the rising sun will stream through the great casement and illumine the figures of saints and archbishops, and gild the old tattered battle-flags in the chancel aisle, and touch with blessing the marble effigies of the dead; and we who walk there, refreshedand comforted, shall feel that the vast cathedral is indeed the gateway to heaven.
York minster is the loftiest of all the English cathedrals, and the third in length,[11]—both St. Albans and Winchester being longer. The present structure is six hundred years old, and more than two hundred years were occupied in the building of it. They show you, in the crypt, some fine remains of the Norman church that preceded it upon the same site, together with traces of the still older Saxon church that preceded the Norman. The first one was of wood and was totally destroyed. The Saxon remains are a fragment of stone staircase and a piece of wall built in the ancient herring-bone fashion. The Norman remains are four clustered columns, embellished in the zigzag style. There is not much of commemorative statuary at York minster, and what there is of it was placed chiefly in the chancel. Archbishop Richard Scrope, who figures in Shakespeare's historical play ofHenry the Fourth, and who was beheaded for treason in 1405, was buried in the lady chapel. Laurence Sterne's grandfather, who was chaplain to Laud, is represented there, in his ecclesiastical dress, reclining upon a couch and supporting his mitred head upon his hand,—a squat figure uncomfortably posed, but sculptured with delicate skill. Many historic names occur in the inscriptions,—Wentworth, Finch, Fenwick, Carlisle, and Heneage,—and in the north aisle of the chancel is the tomb of William of Hatfield, second son of Edward the Third, who died in1343-44, in the eighth year of his age. An alabaster statue of the royal boy reclines upon his tomb. In the cathedral library, which contains eight thousand volumes and is kept at the Deanery, is the Princess Elizabeth's prayer-book, containing her autograph. In one of the chapels is the original throne-chair of Edward the Third.
In St. Leonard's Place still stands the York theatre, erected by Tate Wilkinson in 1765. In York Castle Eugene Aram was imprisoned and suffered death. The poet and bishop Beilby Porteus, the sculptor Flaxman, the grammarian Lindley Murray, and the fanatic Guy Fawkes were natives of York, and have often walked its streets. Standing on Skeldergate bridge, few readers of English fiction could fail to recall that exquisite description of the place, in the novel ofNo Name. In his artistic use of weather, atmosphere, and colour Wilkie Collins is always remarkable equally for his fidelity to nature and fact, and for the felicity and beauty of his language. His portrayal of York seems more than ever a gem of literary art, when you have seen the veritable spot of poor Magdalen's meeting with Captain Wragge. The name of Wragge is on one of the signboards in the city. The river, on which I did not omit to take a boat, was picturesque, with its many quaint barges, bearing masts and sails and embellished with touches of green and crimson and blue. There is no end to the associations and suggestions of the storied city. But lest my readers weary of them, let me respect the admonition of the midnight bell, and seek repose beneath the hospitable wing of the old Black Swan in Coney street, whence I send this humble memorial of ancient York.